I have decided to put my academic schedule up for all the world to see.  I think it will help me hold myself more accountable so I can get these things DONE.

Most of my semester revolves around my Thesis. For those of you unfamiliar with a Thesis, it is basically an empirical research question that we test by collecting and analyzing data and then we write a book about it for free.  A Dissertation is much more in depth, so I look forward to starting on that in the next couple of years (um, yeah, no).

I will not include projects I have to do for work because most of it is Classified. Suffice it to say, I do just as much research and writing for work as I do for school.

These are the textbooks I am reading this semester:

{Occupational Safety – Goetsch}

{Sensation and Perception – Goldstein}

We also have empirical journal articles to read each week for those courses.  I will only share with you the ones I am presenting/teaching this semester.

The Big deadlines:

January 11^th – IRB proposal due to Office of Research

January 21st – IRB committee meeting

January 26^th – Psychophysics “quiz” aka The Psychophysics Beast

February 2^nd – Write summary and present this article to class:

• Straightness as the main factor of the Herman grid illusion

March 15^th– Thesis proposal submitted to committee

February 4^th – Occupational Safety report

February 26^th – HFES submissions are due

• Team performance as a function of task difficulty in a distributed computer game-based architecture

February 25^th – Occupational Safety report

February 26^th – Interview at Old Dominion University for Human Factors PhD program

March 2^nd – Write summary and present this article to class:

• The perception of distances and spatial relationships in natural outdoor environments

March 16^th – Sensation and Perception Exam (which will be like a punch in the face)

March 18th – Human Participant Research Protection Program Training

April 6^th – Write summary and present this article to class:

• The Doppler illusion: The influence of dynamic intensity change on perceived pitch

April 8^th – Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center Student Capstone Conference

April 12^th – Thesis proposal presentation

April 15^th – Occupational Safety report

April 15^th – Teach class on Noise and Vibration hazards in Occupational Safety

Articles:

• Noise Induced Hearing Loss
• Investigation of musicians’ use of hearing protectors
• Whole-body vibration knowledge survey of U.S. occupational safety and
  health professionals
• Assessment of hearing disorders in rock/jazz musicians

April 27^th – Sensation and Perception Final Exam

April 29^th– Occupational Safety Final Exam

June 7^th – 11^th – Human Systems Integration Training in DC for work cancelled

TBD – Thesis Defense

August 20^th – Thesis due to Office of Registration (holy crap!)

What I have to look forward to:

March 6^th thru March 14^th – Spring Break

March 7th – My birthday (turning 27 and I feel GREAT about it!)

May 19^th – 23^rd – Bloggers in Sin City

May 23^rd – 27^th – Boulder, CO

May 27^th – ^30th – Boston, MA

June 6^th – The National in DC

June 16^th – 24^th: Glasgow for Human Performance at Sea conference

TBD – Trip to Portland*

August 27^th – Graduation (wow!)

August 30^th – Begin PhD program as a 3rd year graduate student!!!!

One day halfway through my first semester of grad school, I was waiting out in the hall before class with my fellow classmates.  We were all stressed to the max.  We all had dark purple bags under our eyes.  Some of us had gained weight; others had withered down to nothing.  We were physically, emotionally, mentally exhausted.  A student who graduated from the program was standing out in the hall with us, discussing how stressful our first semester would be.

Our conversation went something like this:

“I feel like I am drowning.  I cannot breathe.  I try to take a deep breath, but my chest feels like the water is crushing my lungs. There are always deadlines, exams, papers, grading, research, a million articles to read.  Even when I try to relax, I know I should be working on something.”

“You will always feel like you are drowning.  The sensation of drowning will not end until you graduate.  You are always being pushed to your absolute limits at all times.  But soon, you will habituate to the feeling of drowning and everything will seem easier.”

The first semester is tough.  There is the excitement and stress of moving to a new place (moving is ranked as one of the most stressful events in one’s life).  Everything you think you know about yourself, life, school, your relationships, your friendships, your goals, your coping mechanisms… is challenged.  You must rearrange your mental representation of reality to survive.  If you don’t change your priorities, your focus, and your coping mechanisms while you are in grad school, then something will suffer greatly.  What usually suffers is your sanity and physical health.  Last semester, I made the choice to put my physical and mental health before anything else.

Today, a fellow graduate student blogger posted about how blogging is hard. I identify 100% with what she has to say.  We feel guilty taking time to write for the Universe when we have so much to do for school (and for work and have a house and personal relationships to maintain).  I have a thesis proposal, coursework (which is code for reading more than you thought was humanly possible and then taking exams and writing papers to prove you learned something), conference submissions, journal article manuscripts, etc. My house is a wreck.  I haven’t been to yoga in over a week.  How can I justify writing a blog post?  Then I have a dialogue with myself about what I could possibly have to contribute to the Blogosphere when there are amazing bloggers out there already writing about everything under the sun!

I think part of what keeps me sane is social networking.  I need to maintain relationships with people.  I value the people in my life and being connected to them is priceless.  Social media helps me stay connected to my friends when we are spread all over the world.  I would be lost without my friends and family.  So… I guess what I am trying to say is… I NEED to blog to survive grad school.

I have finally habituated to the feeling of drowning.  When I feel the water crushing my chest, I turn to you.  The connections I have made with all of you make me feel like I can breathe… in clear blue water.

Leave behind your fears
Please believe
You will not falter
There’s no danger here
You can breathe
In clear blue water

~Oceanlab~